The Collapse of the Soviet Empire: Managing the Regional Fallout
This book brings together informed Japanese and Western European commentaries about the impact of the collapse of the Soviet Union on these two societies. It will be refreshing for Americans to read a study in which they are not the central players. Sponsored by the International Institute for Global Peace in Tokyo and the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London, the book is part of a larger study on issues of common concern. The chapters on the economic, security and political fallout of the end of the Soviet state on Europe and Japan are well done, but one is left with the impression that the problems and opportunities are still substantially regional, and that the consequences for the direct European-Japanese connection are less clear.
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Only a few years ago pundits were sure that the United States was losing to Asia and Europe and had to emulate their more state- directed economies to remain competitive. Now the conventional wisdom is that America is number one and that the rest of the world should adopt its more laissez-faire approach. In fact, neither caricature is right. Asia was booming and now it is slumping, but it will be back. Europe's underlying ossification will persist. But most important, while the U.S. economy is in a period of robust growth, nothing fundamental has changed. Its long-run growth rate has not accelerated, productivity has not risen, and the structural unemployment rate has fallen by one percentage point at most. Come the next recession, all this triumphalism will seem silly.
Eurasia is the axial supercontinent. It is home to most of the world's politically assertive states and all the historical pretenders to global power. Accounting for 75 percent of the world's population, 60 percent of its output, and 75 percent of its energy resources, Eurasia's potential power overshadows even America's. For these reasons, the United States should begin paving the way to a transcontinental security system that will ensure Eurasia's future is more peaceful than its past.
Forecasts the emergence of an international order based on 'civilian powers', defined as states dependent on economic co-operation, supra-national structures, and primarily economic (rather than military) means of defending the national interest. A discussion of the potential of the FRG and Japan as such powers.

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